The 2026 legislative session is here, and this year will be harder than most. For the first time in many years, we’re starting with no money in the checkbook. Idaho still has about a billion dollars in our rainy-day accounts. But those are for emergencies. In past years, we had a cushion at the end of the year to help with budgeting. Not this year. This is new territory for many of us, and it means we must be careful and organized.

To do the work the state needs us to do, JFAC, our budget-writing committee, must define the rules it will follow. It sounds obvious that a committee should have rules. But since 2024, Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee has operated without official rules. It’s led to confusion and delays. In 2025, committee meetings were stopped several times while members

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